How (and why) to donate your body to science

Studies for medical education and research will take up to two years or longer to be completed. Upon completion of studies, the remains will be cremated and the ashes interred in one of Humanity Gi...

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About the process

Studies for medical education and research will take up to two years or longer to be completed. Upon completion of studies, the remains will be cremated and the ashes interred in one of Humanity Gifts Registry's established cemeteries in Philadelphia, Hershey and Pittsburgh. If a family wishes to have the ashes returned for private burial, special arrangements can be made. The registry office must have a written request from the next of kin at the time of death of the donor.

The registry will pay $100 toward the expense of having your body transported from the place of death, by a licensed funeral director, to one of its medical teaching institutions. Your next of kin or estate will be responsible for the costs over this amount.

The registry also assumes the cost of cremation, burial of the ashes in established cemeteries and celebrations of remembrance held by the registry once a year.

Bodies of people dying from highly communicable diseases, crushing injuries, whose remains are autopsied, decomposed, embalmed, obese or have had recent extensive surgery prior to death may not be accepted.

The registry can accept a body after the eyes and skin have been donated. Although it is preferred that the remains are intact, at times the registry may be able to accept a body after the internal organs have been harvested; however, it cannot be guaranteed.

If you die out of state, your body can be donated to the nearest medical school or anatomical board. Your donor card or donor form is a legal document in all 50 states.

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Your death can further medical knowledge.

How?

Donating your body to science gives medical students the chance to learn information that could someday lead to a cure or greater longevity.

"There are never enough donations to meet the needs of the medical schools in Pennsylvania," said Clariza Murray, director of public relations and the donor program for the Humanities Gift Registry in Philadelphia.

Students study human anatomy as part of their medical training. Because of the shortage of donations, "it often means several students share one body, which isn't an ideal learning situation," she said.

The registry receives between 680 to 700 body donations a year.

Debora Hompesch-Loch of Reeders thinks more medical personnel should be educated on the process of how to leave a body to science.

In January, her mother, Jean Smith, a lifelong resident of Monroe County, was dying from cancer and decided to leave her body to science in hopes that medicine could learn about the type she had.

"Basically, there two types of cancer cells: large and small. The type my mother had was small-cell cancer, and it is much harder to diagnose," she said.

By the time Smith knew her ill health wasn't just minor stomach trouble, the cancer had invaded nearly every internal organ.

"My mom had scans, but because of it being small-cell cancer, the tumors didn't show up," she said.

During the last week of Smith's life, she made the decision to leave her body to science, according to her daughter.

"The problem was (that) no one knew how we should go about it," Hompesch-Loch said.

After asking her mother's nurses and hospice providers if they knew how to make such a donation, Hompesch-Loch was still no closer to a contact. Her mother's funeral director didn't know much about the donation process, either.

Finally, after much searching and questioning, Hompesch-Loch found a national organ registry in Chicago online, where she was able to learn more about the donation process.

"We were running out of time before my mother would die, and I really needed to find out what we should do," she said.

After she was directed to William H. Clark Funeral Home in Stroudsburg, Hompesch-Loch said that the wheels began to move.

"Three days after my mother died, her body was delivered to The Commonwealth Medical School in Scranton," she said.

If you live in Pennsylvania, the Human Gifts Registry of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, can help.

"We are able to accept most bodies, and it is only under the rarest circumstances that a donor's body might be rejected," Murray said.

One of the biggest misconceptions Murray hears is that the registry sells organ parts for money.

"Absolutely not," she said.

The Humanity Gifts Registry is a nonprofit agency, and the organization is focused on the receipt and distribution of bodies donated to all medical and dental schools in the state for teaching purposes.

The participating schools pay only for the actual expenses involved in obtaining and distributing the donated bodies to the medical facilities in the registry.

"The Auditor General of Pennsylvania regularly comes in and examines our the financial records to make sure all the funds are accounted for," Murray said.

Murray often talks to groups about how to become a donor. "I always tell them to think how through their generosity, knowledge will continue to grow," she said.